------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration] III ASHES—SIGNIFYING DESOLATION AFTER all, thought I, ashes follow blaze inevitably as death follows life. Misery treads on the heels of joy; anguish rides swift after pleasure. “Come to me again, Carlo,” said I to my dog; and I patted him fondly once more, but now only by the light of the dying embers. It is very little pleasure one takes in fondling brute favorites; but it is a pleasure that when it passes, leaves no void. It is only a little alleviating redundance in your solitary heart-life which, if lost, another can be supplied. But if your heart, not solitary—not quieting its humors with mere love of chase, or dog—not repressing, year after year, its earnest yearnings after something better and more spiritual—has fairly linked itself by bonds strong as life, to another heart—is the casting off easy then? Is it then only a little heart-redundancy cut off, which the next bright sunset will fill up? And my fancy, as it had painted doubt under the smoke, and cheer under warmth of the blaze, so now it began under the faint light of the smoldering embers, to picture heart-desolation. What kind, congratulatory letters, hosts of them, coming from old and half-forgotten friends, now that your happiness is a year, or two years old! “Beautiful.” —Ay, to be sure, beautiful! “Rich.” —Pho, the dawdler! how little he knows of heart-treasure, who speaks of wealth to a man who loves his wife as a wife only should be loved! “Young.” —Young indeed; guileless as infancy; charming as the morning. Ah, these letters bear a sting: they bring to mind, with new and newer freshness, if it be possible, the value of that which you tremble lest you lose. How anxiously you watch that step—if it lose not its buoyancy. How you study the color on that cheek, if it grow not fainter. How you tremble at the luster in those eyes, if it be not the luster of death. How you totter under the weight of that muslin sleeve—a phantom weight! How you fear to do it, and yet press forward, to note if that breathing be quickened, as you ascend the home-heights, to look off on the sunset lighting the plain. Is your sleep, quiet sleep, after that she has whispered to you her fears, and in the same breath—soft as a sigh, sharp as an arrow—bid you bear it bravely? Perhaps—the embers were now glowing fresher, a little kindling, before the ashes—she triumphs over disease. But Poverty, the world’s almoner, has come to you with ready, spare hand.